Patches

Way back in the day, when we first shipped Team Fortress 2 as part of The Orange Box, we'd always planned on it being an ongoing project. But even we had no idea that, four years later, we'd be over two hundred updates strong, with a growing community of collaborators and no signs of stopping. Take a scroll down memory lane at the many tweaks, fixes and epic improvements that have made TF2 the world's #1 war-themed hat simulator.

— The TF2 Team on their dedication to Team Fortress 2

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Patches are updates to Team Fortress 2 that fix known bugs, glitches, or exploits within the game, and often add new features or balance changes to weapons, maps, or other game elements.

Major updates are patches that add new weapons, game modes, or maps. Previously, major updates had centered around one or two particular classes and included new content released predominantly for that class. More recent updates, however, have focused on a particular theme or holiday celebration such as Halloween.

Patches to the game are deployed to Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux platforms via Steam, and must be downloaded and applied before the game can be launched. While all three of these platforms retain the same codebase and any updates are released to both simultaneously, the version of the game on Xbox 360 platform is separate and does not receive frequent updates, due to restrictions imposed on game developers by Microsoft. To date, there have been only four patches to Team Fortress 2 on Xbox 360, compared to the 655 patches that have been released to Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux since 2007.

Typically, each patch is accompanied with release notes detailing the changes introduced in the update; though some additions have often been left unnoted and some patches have been released without any notes entirely. However, through the use of diff tools and version control systems on local machines running the game, it is possible for the community to view all updated files and the changes made to them and thus provide notes on undocumented changes.

Major updates

Major updates are promoted patches that feature new content and or game feature, frequently accompanied by published additions to character development or Storyline (Update pages, Movies, Comics, or Hidden pages), often announced over a period of several days.

Content packs

Content packs are smaller updates that feature new content additions usually as promotional material for other games or events. Updates containing community-contributed items submitted via the former contribution page (now replaced by the Steam Workshop) have also been released as content packs.